Several blogs have informed me that blogging is dead or at least passé. In that spirit, I will keep this short.

As noted in my previous blog, have completed a new manuscript. In the interest of proving my wild claims, I offer you this evidence:

Sigh. Nothing like a fresh hatched manuscript to make a person feel content. Work remains to be done, but in the meantime I can enjoy the taking deep whiffs of printer sweat.

In appearances news, I will be addressing the Alberta Association of Library Technicians at their conference, Sunday, June 9 at 10:00 a.m. in Canmore, Alberta.

I’ll post information about other upcoming events as it becomes available. I invite those of you in the Vancouver area to come out to my reading tomorrow, April 24 at the Vancouver Public Library or to the book club visit on Thursday, April 25 at Christianne’s Lyceum. (Information below). I will also be doing a talk at the Kitsilano branch of the VPL tomorrow afternoon for high school students.

You are probably wondering why I called this blog post “Cisterns ahoy!” Well, it’s because I am gearing up for another spasm of gardening. My brother built me an adorable little greenhouse:

(Please note chicken handle pulls on doors.) He’s also helping me to repair my sadly neglected raised beds. This is all good, but I think what’s really needed is a large rainwater receptacle. Hey, what’s good enough for neolithic villages is good enough for me.

The only problem is that cisterns are hideous.

Perhaps I could pretend they are unfortunate bloated garden art:

Or I could have my brother disguise my cistern as a yoga studio for elves, trolls and toddlers:

Probably what I should do is decorate it within an inch of its life. That might help us avoid neighbor complaints.

I will put up pictures when things are looking less derelict and when there is something other than chickweed and despair growing out back.

new story in Rookie Magazine by Lauren Mechling, author of Dream Life and The Rise and Fall of a Tenth Grade Social Climber. I loved it. I think you will, too.

In other news, my new manuscript is done. Done-ish. Awaiting feedback. I’m excited about this one. It’s set in a fictional art and design-focused high school. Sigh. I would like to attend such a school. Maybe it’s time to take another night class in acrylics. Preferably in a room with low light, so I can maintain my illusion that I “have potential.”

Hello.

My name is Alice MacLeod and I am a Page Turner. Some of you may remember me. I hail from a little town in Northern BC that I like to call Smithers and I wrote some diaries that were more or less leaked/self-published a few years ago. I appear here before you today to make a heartfelt appeal. I wouldn’t call it begging, exactly. I prefer the term cajoling. Anyhow, my appeal is for you to consider donating to the Page Turner Campaign.

What is this, you might ask? It is part of the campaign to support Project Bookmark Canada. This is an awesome project that celebrates Canadian literature by putting permanent Bookmarks at exact sites mentioned in Canadian novels. Because contrary to what I thought when I was a misguided fifteen year old, things happen in Canada, even though Portland and New York are not officially in Canada.

At risk of sounding self-involved on behalf of myself, I’d like to point out that if Project Bookmark keeps being a thing, there’s a chance that they might decide to put a Bookmark in Smithers! Where I live and write! I know there’s heavy competition to get a Bookmark. The PB people are looking to commemorate quality and literary importance. And while my diaries were quite heartfelt and extremely exciting, they weren’t exactly Emile Zola, who also wrote with great sincerity about matters of importance. His Bookmark would be found in Russia. Or maybe France. I’d look it up but our computer is dead. The point is that effort and sincerity ought to count for something. And the chance of getting a Bookmark is enough to keep a struggling writer struggling and might make a person proud to live in a town that would otherwise make them ashamed.

Another thing for you to consider is that I’m currently working as a sick animal and older person transporter. I take pets to the vet and legless retirees ? by which I mean older people who have had too much to drink. I don’t drive many actual amputees, except for Mr. deDecco, who lost his foot in an unfortunate log-rolling incident in the 80s ? to the Legion, bingo and doctor appointments. My twenty-year old car smells like urine and I’m in my mid-twenties and still living at home in near squalor. So even if I don’t get a Bookmark and some other writer who writes about Smithers, B.C. gets one, if you support Project Bookmark Canada, you’ll be giving me a moment during which I feel I have influenced what I like to call our “cultural conversation.”

Please imagine me driving down Main Street in my 1990 Ford Focus. It’s 8:00 on a Thursday night and I see a new plaque. As an involved and evolved citizen, I pull over to admire and learn information from the plaque. I am tired from driving all day and from wiping sick off the backseat. I don’t know whether the mess came from the Mr. Ramiriz’ Great Dane, Barry, who ate an entire kettle of black eyed peas, or from Mrs. Lake, who had some tough losses at the Friday Night Meat Draw. Anyway, I want you to imagine my surprise when I read that the plaque commemorates a piece of Canadian writing set in Smithers (preferably my writing)! What a service to the human spirit that moment would be. It would be proof positive that some of us are late bloomers, from a success perspective. At least, that’s what my counselor keeps telling me. If I don’t get a Bookmark, maybe some other author reeking of vomit and despair will get one. And just maybe that’s enough.

So please: Support Project Bookmark. I did. To the tune of $25, which is a lot for someone who really hasn’t lived up to her potential from a financial perspective. Here’s a further incentive. I recently read this book called The Woefield Poultry Collective. It wasn’t bad and it was written by this person who used to live in Smithers. I hit her up for a free book and if you donate to Project Bookmark and help writers and readers to feel better about themselves and where they live, I will send you the copy of The Woefield Poultry Collective that she sent to me. I’d give you a copy of one of my diaries, but that would feel too much like bragging. Donate today!

Love, Alice MacLeod.

Hello!

As I’ve noted before on the barely updated blog, I can’t figure out how to operate the Google Calendar on my website, so all dates will be posted here.

I’ll be gallivanting around the lower mainland this April and I hope those who live in the area will come out to say hello.

April 10: Canadian Author’s Association-Vancouver Branch

April 24: Reading and talk at Vancouver Public Library, Central Branch, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. (Lower level) I’ll be reading from my newest novel, Bright’s Light, and from a nearly completed work-in-progress and giving a talk.

April 25: Visit to Christianne’s Lyceum, Adult Book Club series. This is a marvelous book club. Check out the line-up of authors!

Finally, thank you to the Canadian Library Association for nominating Bright’s Light for the Young Adult Novel of the Year Award.

Other dates for the spring and summer will be posted soon. Also, stay tuned for information from a special guest blogger about the Project Bookmark Page Turner Campaign.

Until then.

who has been missing Prudence, Seth, Sara and Earl, I’m very pleased to announce that I will be writing a sequel to The Woefield Poultry Collective (a.k.a. Home to Woefield as it`s know in the U.S.) with a tentative publication date of fall 2014. The new adventures of the inhabitants of Woefield Farm will be called The Republic of Dirt.

What will those crazy incompetent yet lovable fools get up to in the next installment, you ask? Here’s a hint:

Thanks to Iris Tupholme and everyone at HarperCollins for getting the old gang back together.

P.S. Thanks also to all who have read and taken the time to write me about Bright`s Light!

xo

to you all!

There is much to report on the publishing front and I’ll give the lowdown in January when all the details have been worked out.

In the meantime, thank you to the Saskatoon Public Library for choosing Woefield as a readers’ favourite for 2012!

In years past I’ve gone a little hog wild with the cooking at Christmas but this year I’m going to try to calm the $#@# down. Why? Because a couple of years ago I went so hard trying to cook my way through the entire holiday edition of Bon Appetit that I tore a rotator cuff in my shoulder. Yes way! Last year I enticed my brother Scott to visit and I worked him for about twelve hours a day. We made pasta from scratch, two cakes, an array of heirloom (Let’s try to figure out how this vaguely remembered thing we ate once when we were twelve was made!) experiments and a bunch of other things beside. We nearly tore his rotator cuff.

Then, a few days after last Christmas my husband went vegan. No warning. Just… vegan. He’s since eased up so that he’s just mostly vegan. Bless his heart. It’s very hard to go hog wild cooking for a person who doesn’t eat wheat, sugar, fat and most animal products. Even the most complicated salads take a fraction of the time a little number like this does:

I still might make this, but then I’ll have to take it to the back porch and eat it myself. Sad, really.

Anyway, happy holidays to you all. And take care of those rotator cuffs.

xo

First, thank you to writer Anicka Quin, editor and designer Jane Griffin and photographer Peter Holst for the lovely feature in SFU’s AQ Magazine.

Anicka Quin is a former classmate from SFU’s MPub, editor of Western Living Magazine and one of the smartest, coolest people I know. Jane is one of Vancouver’s most talented designers.

Peter Holst has the distinction of being the first photographers ever to say to me: “Very good with the eyes.” Most people who are forced to take my picture say things like “Has someone recently stabbed you in the spleen?” or “The severe indigestion been with you for long?” But I felt immediately comfortable with Peter, who is stylish and kind. When we were near the end of the shoot, I was beginning to get tired. “The eyes have gone cold,” said Peter, sadly, and in so doing made my life.

I feel I should mention that the shirt I’m wearing the photos is over ten years old. In fact, I bought it the year Alice, I Think was published. It might just be my special shirt, which means that I should probably pick it off the floor of my closet.

As for the content of the interview, when Anicka and I spoke, I was splitting my time between three works-in-progress. That was turning my eyes cold by about 9:15 each morning, so I’m now just working on two. I thought that the ideas for books would become more manageable the longer I wrote, but they seem to be piling up like brake-failures at a Toyota Test Centre (with apologies to Toyota. We are a two-Toyota family! Available to be advertising models for the low, low price of a new Scion IQ!)

As per the article, I encourage everyone to attend SFU and the Master of Publishing program. But first, come to VIU and take a nice degree in creative writing and journalism with a side of publishing. (See Toyota: I’m the ideal pitch-person.)

In other news, Wednesday night my creative nonfiction class at VIU hosted the 2nd annual Story SLAM. Twelve students told stories to a large, enthusiastic crowd and the storytellers blew everyone away. I wish I had a picture to put up, but I do have a poster, created by Trevor Cooper, who told an amazing story called “Stranger Danger” about his parents’ attempts to instill caution in their overly enthusiastic child.

So that’s it. That’s what has been going on. Teaching, writing and wearing lucky shirts. Listening to brilliant comedy podcasts.

Until next time…
xo

The Writer’s Life videos keep coming!

I hope you enjoy the sight of the last shreds of my dignity being destroyed in a pillow fight and associated hijinks. On that note, a thousand thanks to my partners in yourube youtube crime: Sheree Fitch, Susin Nielsen and Art Slade with special guest star, artistic director of the Vancouver Writers Fest, Hal Wake. These are all talented, competent people who deserve better than to end up in one of my videos. Please note that Susin does not make a habit of attacking the mini bar, I’m rarely injured while jumping on the bed in hotel rooms and Art and Sheree spend hardly any time at all in blankets forts, separately or alone. Hal, on the other hand, probably does find himself looking for writers now and then.

xo

Please join Susin Nielsen and I at Kidsbooks, 3083 West Broadway, Tuesday, November 13 at an event hosted by Kidsbooks and the Vancouver Literature Roundtable. (Please visit link to register.)

There will be beverages and snacks and delightful chit chat of a bookish nature. Thank you to Cynthia Nugent for the funny and charming poster.

Any moment now, I will post the next Writer’s Life video (Episode 4: Behind the Scenes at a Writers Festival) so you can see us in action. Ahem.

Join us!

For those who are interested, I will be appearing at Event #1 with the fabulous Susin Nielsen on Tuesday, October 16 from 10:00 – 11:30 on the Granville Island Stage to talk about books to TV and back again. We are lucky enough to have Dennis Foon moderating and a good time will be had by all!

Here’s a little secret: we will also be working on another Writer’s Life video, perhaps during this event! Yes, I have roped one of the finest talents in Canadian TV, not to mention one of our very best writers, into taking part. (If you haven’t yet read Susin’s new book, The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen you are missing out. It promises to be one of the big books this year and is getting rave reviews and breaking hearts everywhere it goes.)

Susin was the showrunner for the Alice, I Think TV series (and has been the driving force behind many others, including the brilliant Robson Arms) and just between you and me and the Internet, she has been approached to work on a TV adaptation of Woefield. I can’t say more than that, but there are some very talented people trying to make it happen, so please do join us.

Anyway, back to the event and the video. Here’s the concept: Behind the Scenes at a Writer’s Festival. We’d love to get some shots of people in the crowd for the episode.

If you are a teacher, please bring a class! We promise to entertain and instruct. You can order class tickets here.

Here is a little taste of Alice, written by the hilarious Norm Hiscock.

I will also be appearing at Event #06 from 1:00- 2:30 at the Waterfront Theatre. This panel is called Worlds Run Amok. I’ll be with Rachel Hartman and the event will be hosted by Susin Neilsen.

Then keep an eye peeled at the Granville Island Hotel where two of my favourite writers and human beings, Art Slade and Sheree Fitch, will be joining in the Writer’s Life video hijinks.